For GOP, Obama budget offer too little, too late

As word leaked of President Barack Obama’s plan to include entitlement tweaks when he unveils his budget next week, Congressional Republicans on Friday said it won’t bring Washington any closer to a grand bargain on the deficit.

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W.H. budget cuts Medicare, Social Security, Mike Allen reports

Self-loathing Republicans

Republicans argue that Obama’s decision to include “chained CPI” — a formula that slows the growth rate of Social Security benefits — doesn’t go far enough to overhaul entitlements and cut spending. They’re especially adamant because they raised taxes without cutting spending in the fiscal cliff deal. As far as they’re concerned, any budget compromise needs to include significant changes to entitlements, and far less than $9 billion in tax hikes supposedly in the president’s plan.

Chained CPI, a senior GOP leadership aide said Friday, “is kind of like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”

By putting it on the table, however, the White House is including what is sees as a significant concession in the budget battles. Some progressive lawmakers were already venting steam about the move on Friday, and it could cost Obama with his base without the Republicans having given further on taxes. It was the first time the president included the language in a budget document.

“It doesn’t address the core structural problems: a dramatic growth in the number of beneficiaries congruent with a shrinking number of payees/taxpayers,” the aide said. “It is very unlikely to elicit dramatic movement on a grand bargain…our members feel like they have acceded to more revenue than they agree with under any scenario, so this kind of chippy small-ball won’t do it for them.”

”Dramatic movement that addresses underlying problems would be a game changer and might even put revenue in play, but this will be viewed as more disingenuous posturing.”

The introduction of the president’s budget next week marks yet another chapter in the endless narrative that’s defined both Obama’s presidency and Ohio Rep. John Boehner’s speakership: the quest for a large-scale deficit deal. The two have been trying for years to forge a grand bargain to reduce the deficit, with endless failures causing deep distrust between them.

Gone are the days of Obama negotiating with Boehner. Now, Obama is trying to divide Senate and House Republicans — he’s dining with GOP senators for the second time on the day the budget will be unveiled. The White House declined to speak about whether Obama would have similar meetings with House lawmakers.

Republican lawmakers aren’t ruling out revenue increases, but say chained CPI will not be the panacea for another pivot from Republican orthodoxy. They argue they need a more significant overture than that, especially when combined with $9 billion in tax revenues.

Expect the messaging war to begin in earnest next week. Republicans will begin repeating endlessly s that Obama himself was once willing to go farther than he is now. The president told Boehner in 2011 that he was willing to cut $100 billion from Medicaid and could stomach increasing the eligibility age of Medicare, for instance.

“The president’s inclusion of actual, if modest, entitlement reforms in his budget might seem noteworthy to Democrats and some in the media because it’s the first time he’s put it in his budget … but it does little or nothing to bring both parties closer to a fiscal agreement,” one GOP leadership aide said.

“This is essentially the same offer that was rejected by [Speaker John Boehner] in December because it was not “balanced” — it was significantly skewed in favor of higher taxes, and included only modest entitlement savings. Adding ‘chain CPI’ to his menu of entitlement reform options is not a ‘new’ proposal.”